A former detective with the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office pleaded guilty Tuesday to more than $200,000 in mortgage fraud involving a Mays Landing property.
Betsy Borges, 38, of Mays Landing, pleaded guilty before Senior U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle in Camden federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Borges was originally charged in May in a complaint with Iraida Fuentes, 35, of Pleasantville.
Borges purchased 4957 Cardigan Court in Mays Landing in December 2002, but failed to make mortgage payments to either Wachovia or its successor, Wells Fargo, according to the complaint. Still, she collected rent from tenants living in the property, and concealed that income from the banks, the charging document claims. She also lied to Wells Fargo on multiple occasions, saying that she could not make the mortgage payments.
Borges began working for the Prosecutor’s Office in 2005, and was a detective there until Feb. 4, 2014.
On four separate occasions in August 2012, Borges used her work-issued vehicle to drive to the bank to set up an account for Fuentes and deposit thousands into it that would then be used to sell the property to Fuentes at well below the property’s value in a short sale.
In the Sept.20, 2012 sale to Fuentes, Borges did not disclose that they were related nor that the money used was actually hers and that of an unnamed co-conspirator.
On Nov. 22, 2016, B&B Properties – a company partly owned by Borges – purchased the property from Fuentes for $25,000. On Feb. 3, 2017, Borges then individually purchased the property from B&B Properties for a dollar.
The bank fraud conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. As part of her plea agreement, Borges must forfeit $206,450 in criminal proceeds from the scheme. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 23.
Fuentes pleaded guilty Nov. 6 to making a false declaration in the grand jury in relation to this matter and awaits sentencing.
Acting U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick credited agents of the FBI’s Atlantic City Resident Agency, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Timothy Gallagher in Newark, with the investigation leading to the guilty plea.